Lord of the XII Legion – the Killing Ground

So there I was, after last week’s post, with my aquila lander for Azazel’s terrain challenge all primed and ready to go — and then something just jumped the queue. It’s still a terrain project, however, after a fashion. And I am confident it’ll make another fitting entry for the community challenge. So what is this about?

A bit more than two years ago, I converted and painted a model that still stands as one of my proudest hobby achievements: My interpretation of Angron, Primarch of the World Eaters, in his ascended form as a Daemon-Primarch of Khorne:

I am still extremely proud of the model, which inspired several blog posts and was, itself, part of an even bigger project to build models to represent Angron at different moments in his violent life.

Anyway, you can find out more about the process of creating Daemon-Primarch Angron here. The truth of the matter, however, was that more than two years later, the model still wasn’t completely finished.

You see, back when I built the base for my Daemon-Primarch version of Angron, it was planned as a modular display base, based on the shattered Imperial aquila terrain piece from the Honoured Imperium kit.

The actual base for Angron himself was, carefully and painstakingly, sawn out of the original terrain piece:

At the same time, I added two more Ultramarines to the bigger part of the display, in order to create a small mini-diorama of the XII Legion Primarch slashing through the remains of an Ultramarines squad. Something like this:

Alas, that modular piece was never finished, as I kept telling myself I would just quickly paint it up at a later point — I should really have listened to my buddy Augustus b’Raass who told me that I should not put it off for too long, lest I end up taking years to finish it. Which is precisely what happened…

But when I took a look at the unpainted base last week, I felt the need to finally finish it and give Angron his proper display — if nothing else, I wanted to have the model completely finished before GW decides to release an official model for Angron in his 40k form…

With both the actual terrain and two Ultramarines models left to complete, this was actually a pretty substantial hobby endeavour, but I surprised myself by actually making fairly quick work of it.

First up were the actual aquila base and the kneeling Ultramarine who is lining up a last shot at the Primarch:

I went for the same scratched and scuffed armour look I had aready used on the unlucky bisected officer held in Angron’s right fist, to create the impression the scene was set during a grueling battle. Due to the slightly 30k-styled Armour of the Ultramarines, this could be set either in the 30k timeframe (at the very end of the Shadow Crusade, upon Angron’s “ascension”) or during any of the following millennia, up to “current-day” 40k.

The Ultramarine standard to the right of the Marine actually mirrors an identical piece appearing on the base of my Forgeworld Angron:

The most complicated part of the paintjob was, ironically enough, to match the colour of the right side of the aquila to that appearing on the smaller part of it that makes up Daemon-Angron’s base, something that would, of course, have been trivially easy, had I painted it all in one go…

As you can see, that left only the fallen Marine in the middle (actually one of the Marine’s from the stock base of Forgeworld’s Angron), and I quickly painted that last model over the weekend.

Of course I made sure to create a suitable bloodstain on the ground, before gluing down the model:

So without further ado, here’s the finished display base, showing a charging Lord of the XII Legion and the courageous, if ill-fated, last stand of an Ultramarines squad:

Here’s a view from the unlucky survivor’s perspective…

I really feel I am giving the Ultramarines a fair shake here, in spite of everything: That last guy looks dead set not to abandon his position and to fight to his last, which seems very much in character for the legion. I feel this also prevents the dead smurfs from just feeling like gratuitous splatter effects. And after all, it’s Angron we are talking about here — there was always going to be blood, right? 😉

And of course the whole ensemble is still modular, allowing me to use Angron on his own, smaller base:

Here are some additional detail shots showing off various parts of the finished piece:

It feels great to finally have finished the complete piece – and also the last part of my little collection, or “Massacre”, of Angrons! The modular display bases for Forgeworld’s Horus Heresy characters were an inspiration for this, and now it definitely seems like a FW base turned up to eleven.

Now for that aquila lander… 😉

Anyway, that’s it for today. I would, of course, love to hear your thoughts about the finished piece, so please leave a comment! And, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

Cheers, mate! And no, that’s not my blood – nor anyone else’s, for that matter. When used well, Tamiya Clear Red (as well as Blood for the Blood God) will end up looking pretty convincing — the trick is not to overdo the effect.

A-mazing. Hats off to you. Your Angron is superb, of course, but I also love the way that that imminently-dead Ultramarine at the far end of the eagle is still blasting away as though it’ll make any difference. Adds a lot to the narrative of the scene and highlights the character of the Ultras just as much as the big man himself.

Looks great! It’s nice to see you return to the incredibly impressive Angron and finally finish the entire (extended) piece to your satisfaction. I also like the little reprise to the smaller, FW Angron with the UM standard, though I probably wouldn’t have noticed it if you’d not pointed it out. 🙂

Cheers, mate! There are actually multiple shout outs like that between the four different versions of Angron I have built and painted. It’s quite likely that nobody’s ever going to notice any of them, but I still get a kick of those small details 😉

Thanks a lot, mcmattila! Those photos were tweaked a bit with Pixlr, which is quite a bit of fun to mess around with, even if it’s unfortunately no longer available as a desktop app, only as a web app.

This is awesome. The diorama really brings it to life. Great juxtaposition of big, furious, charging Angron ready for close combat vs. the small, stoic, crouching, ultramarine. I really think you’re doing both side justic here. The grenade in hand is a nice touch. Does the Ultramarine have any other tricks up his sleeve?